That's quite likely, considering we already got to have Fimir in Morlat Empires/ WH:TW 1. Either that, or they just got their hands on very old lore books just to make us, dinosaurs, happy.Without a doubt lots of thinking power went into creating the game and I have to say, it's satisfying to see those old little things. Makes the game feel more complete and compelling to play.

I only wish they'd optimize it better so changing turn wouldn't take 1-4 minutes and patch out that alt+tab crash bug.

From what I've played of both games, I think it's really clear there's a lot of people who are real fans in the development team. All the unit icons are old artwork from the regiment boxes. There's loads of neat little details they've added. The fact that the Vampire Coast army is in it is excellent.

I've got to say I love the games, it's really enjoyable.

Also as an added benefit, I must say it's interesting to hear how people pronounce some things from Ulthuan! Clearly in my head certain things have been very wrong as I've never spoken them out loud.

From what I've played of both games, I think it's really clear there's a lot of people who are real fans in the development team. All the unit icons are old artwork from the regiment boxes. There's loads of neat little details they've added. The fact that the Vampire Coast army is in it is excellent.

I've got to say I love the games, it's really enjoyable.

Also as an added benefit, I must say it's interesting to hear how people pronounce some things from Ulthuan! Clearly in my head certain things have been very wrong as I've never spoken them out loud.

Agreed, the design team has some real good people, even pronouncing things just the way I thought they would be. I'm afraid the AI, diplomacy, and optimization are issues that will never be fixed however. Still, extremely enjoyable!

_________________Prince Deral Lionbane, head of the House of Lionbane, Lord of Lionstone and Warden of Tor Charta

Luna, try not to beat them too hard. They are proud about their pseudo-glorious past and their present nothingness, you know. -Elmoth, about Caledorians

I'm afraid the AI, diplomacy, and optimization are issues that will never be fixed however.

I think this is pretty much true of all Total War games. All of them have these kinds of issues. Though in some its worse then others. Doesn't bother me too much, since I have a fairly casual approach to the TW games. I can imagine though that it bothers more fanatical players.

It's always great to see a lot of love put into a game. I can imagine that a lot of game developers like playing games a lot and some of them have some experience with table top wargames. Which means they have probably at some point run into GW.

Though it's equally likely that in their quest to differentiate armies and factions as much as possible, they've grabbed hold of whatever obscure reference they could find. A bit similar to GW approach to the LoTR universe.

Rod

_________________

Eirik wrote:

Please try to remember that, no matter how 'official' the source seems, rumours are basically just a dictionary combined with a random number generator

I wonder how sales of GW work with Total War? Surely there's a lot of people out there who hadn't played before going "Oh wow I'd love to go collect X after playing this" only to discover it's all gone?

There is a considerable base of such individuals. Majority of my gaming clicque formed after the release of TW:Warhammer just because it got them interested in certain races and the lore. In most cases they got into armies, which can be easily assembled with AoS kits and separate square bases. We have that one madman bent on getting a full Dwarf army with 100% GW models though.

It's a shame, particularly for the Bretonnians and Tomb Kings. When I was first in the hobby I always, always planned to make a Bretonnian army and I just never got round to it, I always assumed they would eventually make a new model line. Now you can't get the models at all, people laughably expecting you to pay 55 quid for a grail knight on ebay!

Well some models are rather easy to substitute. Empire and Bretonnia first and foremost, but VC and O&G are also easy enough. The Elves are a bit tougher, oddly enough, and the only real unit-size alternatives are from Mantic. Unfortunately I find their Elves a bit...bad, although I do kind of like their dragon lord and a lot of their other minis are well worth checking out!

_________________Prince Deral Lionbane, head of the House of Lionbane, Lord of Lionstone and Warden of Tor Charta

Luna, try not to beat them too hard. They are proud about their pseudo-glorious past and their present nothingness, you know. -Elmoth, about Caledorians

Well some models are rather easy to substitute. Empire and Bretonnia first and foremost

I think this explains why bretonnia never got a lot of love from GW. Knights were too generic and they didn't see a lot of options for interesting models. Might be that they felt too cliche even for GW standards.

Tomb kings I'm less sure about. They have a pretty nice line-up of models (except for the monkey core skeletons). I think for TK it's more a case that they had a pretty bad army book for a long while, which meant the range wasn't very popular, which meant that they didn't get any updates for a long while which meant that they remained unpopular.

As far as complete ranges of models go, I think that GW elves are better then what you find at other manufacturers. Mantic elves are (in my opinion) not very good. Though for other races they have pretty good alternatives I think.

Olthannon wrote:

I wonder how sales of GW work with Total War? Surely there's a lot of people out there who hadn't played before going "Oh wow I'd love to go collect X after playing this" only to discover it's all gone?

I think that when the people at Creative Assembly saw the release of AoS (around the same time as the TW:WH release) they slapped themselves in the face and shouted "They did what???"

Rod

_________________

Eirik wrote:

Please try to remember that, no matter how 'official' the source seems, rumours are basically just a dictionary combined with a random number generator

I think this explains why bretonnia never got a lot of love from GW. Knights were too generic and they didn't see a lot of options for interesting models. Might be that they felt too cliche even for GW standards.

That doesn't really explain the Empire being the focus for such a long time, as they are just as bog-standard as Bretonnia. Heck, I'd say Bretonnia is more iconic fantasy and more interesting than the Empire, but that's just because gunpowder and fantasy IMHO really do not mix, unless everyone has it. There was plenty of room for the Bretonnian range to grow and tropes to explore, so I am rather bitter that they never got the love I felt that they deserved

Prince of Spires wrote:

Tomb kings I'm less sure about. They have a pretty nice line-up of models (except for the monkey core skeletons). I think for TK it's more a case that they had a pretty bad army book for a long while, which meant the range wasn't very popular, which meant that they didn't get any updates for a long while which meant that they remained unpopular.

Sort of agreed, although you could do a fair bit of substitution with other ranges (Reaper Bones has some good options for example)

Prince of Spires wrote:

As far as complete ranges of models go, I think that GW elves are better then what you find at other manufacturers. Mantic elves are (in my opinion) not very good. Though for other races they have pretty good alternatives I think.

Fully agreed, although it is fair to point out that a lot of (if not all of) their elf models are old, and their new models look better than their old ones. Maybe there will be a new line of elves in the future?

_________________Prince Deral Lionbane, head of the House of Lionbane, Lord of Lionstone and Warden of Tor Charta

Luna, try not to beat them too hard. They are proud about their pseudo-glorious past and their present nothingness, you know. -Elmoth, about Caledorians

As far as complete ranges of models go, I think that GW elves are better then what you find at other manufacturers. Mantic elves are (in my opinion) not very good. Though for other races they have pretty good alternatives I think.

Fully agreed, although it is fair to point out that a lot of (if not all of) their elf models are old, and their new models look better than their old ones. Maybe there will be a new line of elves in the future?

Possibly true. I just had a browse around Mantics site. And the Orcs especially but also their goblins look pretty good. And they seem to be fairly good value for money. So I can imagine that their elves will improve if they get around to redoing the line.

Rod

_________________

Eirik wrote:

Please try to remember that, no matter how 'official' the source seems, rumours are basically just a dictionary combined with a random number generator

From what I saw there, you can pretty much assemble a complete army from the last position I mentioned (apart from serfs ofc). Also, there is a Game of Thrones line inbound and some archers (mainly STark and other northerners) look suitable for proxing bret bowmen.